# Photorealistic modelling of metals from first principles

## TL;DR

This paper presents a first-principles computational framework to accurately predict the optical properties and colours of various metals and alloys, validated against experimental data and capable of photorealistic rendering.

## Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive, first-principles method for predicting metallic reflectivity and colour, including complex alloys, with validation against experimental results.

## Key findings

- Accurate prediction of metal reflectivity and colour from first principles.
- Successful validation with experimental data and photorealistic rendering.
- Applicable to elemental metals and various metallic compounds.

## Abstract

The colours of metals have attracted the attention of humanity since ancient times, and coloured metals, in particular gold compounds, have been employed for tools and objects symbolizing the aesthetics of power. In this work we develop a comprehensive framework to obtain the reflectivity and colour of metals, and show that the trends in optical properties and the colours can be predicted by straightforward first-principles techniques based on standard approximations. We apply this to predict reflectivity and colour of several elemental metals and of different types of metallic compounds (intermetallics, solid solutions and heterogeneous alloys), considering mainly binary alloys based on noble metals. We validate the numerical approach through an extensive comparison with experimental data and the photorealistic rendering of known coloured metals.